Piano turns whiny in the middle of the track?

[Adri R]

Hi Guys,

Can someone help me understand, not sure why it keeps happening. Story goes: I open a new track, start playing the piano (I usually pick Piano 1 st.) then after a while the notes all go whiny like a sick cat. Sometimes this anomaly happens after a few minutes, other times much later.  Not sure what triggers this behaviour as the only thing I do is just playing notes on the keyboard? When I close the track and create a new one, it goes back to normal. Anyhow, it is really annoying every time that I have to restart with a new track, could someone please help me how to fix this?

Much appreciated.

[StudioNSFW]

What level of Polyphony does your keyboard have?  Some older stuff is limited. My ancient Bass synth has ONE voice, so a second note will cancel the first.  Max polyphony I have seen is 128 voices, which you'd think would be  plenty if just using one instrument, but can be an issue once drums, strings etc all start being asked to play too.

Edited April 9, 2020 by StudioNSFW

[Adri R]

1 hour ago, StudioNSFW said:

What level of Polyphony does your keyboard have?  Some older stuff is limited. My ancient Bass synth has ONE voice, so a second note will cancel the first.  Max polyphony I have seen is 128 voices, which you'd think would be  plenty if just using one instrument, but can be an issue once drums, strings etc all start being asked to play too.

Hey StudioNSFW,

Thanks for asking! Well, I only use Cakewalk to practice the piano (out of necessity) and the midi keyboard I got is in fact an older one i.e. Studiologic SL-990XP.  Due to the fact it's no longer in production, I've not been able to pin down the specs :( and the manual is very lacking to say the least. I've not noticed the poliphony to go up massively (but am not playing a lot of notes at the same time tho), maybe the max number I saw for poliphony was around 12? It's just bugging me that even when I play the same piece, some occassions it seems to work fine, other times it gives up... Well, do you think I'm doomed coz it's an old construct? :(

 

[StudioNSFW]

Yup, there it is. I'd expect it to me more consistent but if the keyboard can only produce 12 voices at a time..including any notes that should be sustaining - eventually overtones and etc will just disappear.

I don't think you are doomed...but might look for a software synth and learn to drive that from your keyboard instead of using the built in synth (use your keyboard as a controller) . Or, alternately, use this as the reason to upgrade to that new workstation/synth you've been lusting after.

 

 

[Adri R]

2 hours ago, StudioNSFW said:

Yup, there it is. I'd expect it to me more consistent but if the keyboard can only produce 12 voices at a time..including any notes that should be sustaining - eventually overtones and etc will just disappear.

I don't think you are doomed...but might look for a software synth and learn to drive that from your keyboard instead of using the built in synth (use your keyboard as a controller) . Or, alternately, use this as the reason to upgrade to that new workstation/synth you've been lusting after.

 

 

thanks  - well this was supposed to be a temporary measure to dip my toes ...Well, you seem to be a mindreader, how did you know I had my eyes on something Never mind, I might use your insight as an excuse to make things happen if that's okay Thanks again!

[Starship Krupa]

Does the whining stop when you stop playing? Does the whining only occur when other people are in the room? Does it only occur when you play with a door or window open?

But seriously, folks....

My understanding of what your setup is is that you are using an SL-990, which is an 88-key weighted piano action MIDI keyboard controller, to play a piano sound on Cakewalk's TTS-1 softsynth. Am I correct?

Your Studiologic MIDI controller doesn't have any practical limit to its "polyphony," BTW, it just puts out MIDI notes as fast as any human can possibly play them. I also own one, and I also have an owner's manual. Not much to it except for how to set the velocity curves and set up splits, stuff that most people don't bother with. It has no sounds in it, it must be hooked up to a sound module or a computer to make any sound at all.

Polyphony limitations are in the synth itself, which would be the TTS-1. Polyphony limitations don't show up as "whining," you just get notes cutting off short or not sounding. TTS-1 is more than adequate to the the task of a bit of piano practice, unless your practice involves holding down the sustain pedal and running down the keyboard to make all the notes sound at once.

A "whining" sound would seem to indicate some kind of feedback/loopback somewhere in your audio routing. What you're doing should work fine all day long. The SL-990 is a fine controller for piano.

What does the rest of your setup look like? What audio/MIDI interface are you using? You must be using an external interface, because the SL-990 is 5-pin DIN. Are you using the external interface to monitor your playing?

And although I asked the question I jest up above, does the whining sound stop when you stop playing?

Just curious: can you go into Cakewalk's Preferences and in the Audio/Configuration File section, check to see what your ThreadSchedulingModel is set to? It should be set to 2. If it's set to 3, set it to 2 and please reply quoting me so that I get a notification.

Also, while you're poking around in the Audio section, check in Playback and Recording and see what Driver Mode you're in, and in Driver Settings to see what Latency you are running at.

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Starship Krupa

[Adri R]

thanks for the input Erik, very helpful! assured me that I 've been on the right path.

it's funny how I tried to fix the soundcard, find the perfect latency/sampling rate, bit depth, etc setting whatnot and none of those helped. even installed asio driver. still nothing. So it was not a Windows vs soundcard, cakewalk vs soundcard or cakewalk setting, TTS/Omni. it turned out that the issue  must have had to do with the alignment of the midi controller and Cakewalk somehow.),  What I did was keep swithcing between the programs on the Studiologic and at the same time observing how each setting changed the 'piano set' in Cakewalk instrument (TTS ). I also brought back down the modulator to the absolute minimum.